Water by Peter Dickinson, Robin McKinley Read Free Book Online Page B

from us.”
    They left her alone that day, shut up in her room, and went on about the farm work and the
    wedding preparations with heavy hearts.
    And Jenny, after several solitary and gloomy hours, crept out of her room and down the stairs,
    and to the barns. She saddled her mare, Flora, and led her down a soft path where the mare’s iron
    shoes would not ring and give them away, and mounted and rode off. Jenny looked back after
    she had run off her first misery with a gallop, and saw that her long-legged wolfhound bitch had
    followed her. She scolded her, and Gruoch’s ears drooped, but she peered at her mistress up
    under her hairy brows, and clung to Flora’s heels, and showed no sign of going home as ordered.
    So they went on together, the three of them.
    It was twilight when Jenny reached Robert’s farm, and his family was not expecting her. She
    paused at the gate. She knew why she had come, but she did not know what to do about it, and,
    knowing she did not know, had put off thinking about it, and now she was here and had to do
    something. At last she dismounted, and led Flora through the gate—while Gruoch oiled her way
    between the rails—and closed it behind them; and then she tied her mare to the fence and went
    on alone, her wolfhound still at her heels. She went down the path towards the farm buildings, as
    she usually did, although usually she rode, and at the sound of hoofbeats some member of the
    family would come out to meet her, for they were looking out for her. But they were not
    expecting her now, and she and her hound made no sound of footsteps.
    It was spring, and there was much to do, for it had been cold and wet till late this year, and some
    evenings everyone worked on in the fields till dark. She should be home, now, doing the same.
    The buildings seemed deserted, and she wandered among them, a little forlornly, feeling that
    she’d come on a fool’s errand. It was all very well, what her mother said—what her mother had
    offered—but it was not that easy; and as she thought this, her eyes filled up again, and tears ran
    down her cheeks. As she took a great, gulping breath, she thought she heard something. She
    turned and walked towards the nearest barn. It sounded like someone giggling.
    The door was only a little ajar, and it was almost dark inside, for there was not much daylight
    left. But there was a hatch door left open at the far end of the barn, high up in the loft, and a little
    of the remains of daylight came through it, and fell on a heap of golden straw. Robert was lying
    there, with a very pretty girl. The very pretty girl had no clothes on.
    Jenny gasped, for she could not help it. She had, slowly, over the six months of her betrothal,
    come to understand that Robert did not love her, and this, when she had finally faced it, had
    caused her much grief She felt that she had been foolish, and did not know where to turn; it had
    not occurred to her that her parents were wise enough even in such things to ask them, for she
    knew they loved each other, and had never thought of anyone else from their first courting days.
    She had felt, obscurely, that she had failed them somehow by loving a man who did not love her.
    Nor had she wanted to call off the wedding even now; not clearly, at least; for she knew she did
    still love him; perhaps she was only hoping for miracles; but she thought perhaps that he might
    have some ... reassurance for her, that he might have something for her, even if it was not love, if
    she asked him. But she did not know how to ask for what she wanted, for what she would accept
    in place of love. She did not know what she would accept instead of love because that was what
    she did want, and what he had promised her. She had come over here, dumbly, thinking to find
    Robert, perhaps, alone; perhaps something would come to her that she could say to him.
    She was very young, and very innocent. She had not, at her worst moments, expected anything
    like this. She